Veggies and Venza

Test driving a Toyota Venza, vroom, vroom gets you a beautiful Boos chopping board and a huge, lovely hessian shopping bag.

Wow, this board is solid, weighs a ton, so I'm not going to move it. It's perfect for taking my food shots, so now I have a permanent space for it. This is the setup for the Pineapple, Mango Salsa I made for Fourth of July celebrations.

Problem with holding events outdoors in Florida is you're at the mercy of the weather. It rained on and off all afternoon, so it was surprising there was even a crowd. But guess whenever there's free food, you'll get the crowds. It was nice to spend time with Paula of mangoandlime. She wrote a more descriptive, foodie blog with photos from the event.

This is ratatouille and goat cheese croquette from Chef Xavier.

Bella Cuba's avocado and tomatoes on top of a corn crunchy, much better description by Paula!

Dean Richardson of Tropical Treescapes Inc. likes to grow veggies that are unusual. Never seen red yard long beans. Some of the chefs were using his veggies. Maybe we can get him to bring some to one of my Wok Star cooking classes and cook them?

It was wonderful to see how the chefs came up with their dishes, especially Chef Marcelo from Le Cordon Bleu. Here's the Deconstructed Salad.

For me, gourmet food is best left to restaurant chefs who have sous chefs to assist them and can source specialty items from purveyors. I met a very nice Cordon Bleu student, who is Jamaican Chinese, always find it fascinating the mix of cultures and cuisines.

Going out to eat means two things to me - either savoring unique, off the wall dishes which tend to be on the expensive side or enjoying well prepared food at reasonable prices. I am going to post about a few soon because people keep asking me.

His liquid nitrogen, smokin' Deconstructed Salad was a show stopper.

Different stages of his Deconstructed Salad.

Whenever you ate a dish, you got a stamp in your "Passport" and after 3 stamps, you get a nice potted herb plant. Ralph and I managed to get a mint and parsley. I mentioned Claire Tomlin's The Market Company in Organic and Farmer's Market, they were responsible for organizing this event and think they did a great job, considering the rain.

We had Claire on our TV show: Open to the Public, years ago when Ralph and I used to produce TV shows on Miami Beach. Yes, another hat I used to wear and would like to get back into it, well, not the producing so much but appearing. You can see an excerpt of me interviewing a chef, scroll down to bottom of my BIO.

Mis en place on one of those beautiful Boos chopping boards!

Grimpa's croquettes. I was too full to have any.

Adriana in Surfside's Tilapia ceviche.

All in all, it was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon. We also got to spend time with friends and their grandkids who enjoyed the Florida rain. You'll see them at my Fourth of July Celebrations.